11 Answers
11

To rip a CD, you will require a suitable CD-ripping application. One is installed by default on Ubuntu, and there are others available through Ubuntu's software channels, as reported in the Ubuntu Documentation.

Sound Juicer

Sound Juicer is Ubuntu's default CD-ripping application, and also has the ability to play your CDs and download track data from the Internet.

To rip a CD using Sound Juicer, simply insert an audio CD; Sound Juicer should start automatically. Alternatively, you can select Sound Juicer from Applications -> Sound & Video -> Audio CD Extractor. By default, the CD will be encoded into the OggVorbis format, a Free Format. If you wish to rip a CD to a non-free format such as MP3 or AAC, you will need to install some additional software.

Kubuntu Default CD Ripping Software :

There are two methods of ripping an Audio CD in a default installation of Kubuntu. One is using Konqueror's audiocd:/ KIO-slave and the other is KaudioCreator (KMenu->Multimedia->KaudioCreator). On inserting the Audio CD, you should be presented with the KDE Audio CD Daemon asking you what you wish to do. To use the KIO-slave method (which is relatively easier), select the 'Open in a new Window' option. Or, if you prefer using KAudioCreator, select the Extract and Encode Audio tracks option.

Using audiocd:/ to rip a CD

In Konqueror's location bar, type audiocd:/ and press enter. You should now see the tracks in the CD along with folders named Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3 etc. Click on the folder which corresponds to the format in which you wish to encode, eg. Ogg Vorbis.

Now, copy the tracks that you need from that folder and paste it in the desired location (/home/kubuntu in the example). The tracks are automagically ripped, encoded and copied to the location you specified!

Note: Copying speeds might not be as fast as those achieved when copying a file directly from the CD as the files are also being ripped and encoded. If you wish to modify some of the settings (like editing the tagging sytax or modifying the encoding settings), you can access it either through System Settings (KMenu->System Settings->Sound and Multimedia->Audio CD) or through KDE Control Center (kcontrol).

Using KAudioCreator

Launch KaudioCreator (Kmenu->Multimedia->KaudioCreator). It should automatically display the tracks in the disc. You can modify the settings to suit your needs (Settings->Configure KaudioCreator), and also choose an encoder. Click on the Rip Selection icon to start the Ripping and encoding process.

Other CD Ripping Software :
In alphabetical order.

ABCDE

Those who want a no-nosense, fast, customizable ripping solution should try ABCDE.

Asunder is an easy-to-use, plain CD ripper that converts into MP3, OGG, FLAC, WAV, and the new open codec WavPack. Asunder is in the Ubuntu repository and can be installed with Synaptic or Software Center.

Grip

I have been using Grip until Edgy. It's very easy to use but still very configurable.

Note: Grip is no longer supported by its developers, or by Debian or Ubuntu. It has been removed from the repositories in Ubuntu 9.10.

Ripper X

To install:

sudo apt-get install ripperx

RubyRipper

RubyRipper has been recommended in many forum threads and seems to be one of Linux's best ripping solutions. Also, many feel the closest to EAC in quality of rips.

RubyRipper is not included in the default Ubuntu install and is not included in any of the repositories. Fortunately there is a DEB package available.

Well, rhythmbox itself is able to rip CDs and get album data from the MusicBrainz database.

If you insert a CD, a CD icon appears in the Rhythmbox's side bar at the left. Right click it and choose "Extract to library". Make sure to have the format set to the one you want (probably MP3): Edit -> Preferences -> Music -> Preferred Format.

A lot of time has passed since this Q&A was updated, but it is still the best (only?) "CD Ripper" thread in AskUbuntu (I think).

As of this contribution, the developer for Ruby Ripper writes: "The best current way to rip audio is Morituri, which is available in Precise and beyond."

NOT mentioned to date in this Q&A, Morituri "is a CD ripper aiming for accuracy over speed. Its features are modeled to compare with Exact Audio Copy on Windows." At the moment the README on Github notes as a "Known Issue": "no GUI yet".

Development on Grip, "a GTK-based CD-player and CD-ripper / MP3 encoder", was mentioned above as having slowed down, and so it seems to be, but that hasn't stopped it from being well used.

And maybe it's worth noting Flacon as well in this thread: "Flacon extracts individual tracks from one big audio file containing the entire album of music and saves them as separate audio files."

Accents are correctly saved in file names and metadata (Take that RubyRipper!)

Why it is not good:

If your CD isn't in MusicBrainz or FreeDB, there's no easy way to submit it. SoundJuicer is better in this point.

it won't record the track number in your MP3 metadata, so won't be able to listen the CD as the artist intended. You must go to "MP3 (lame)" configuration and add --tn %n option. Since you are there, also add the option --tv TPE2=%r to get Album Artist metadata recorded.

you can't freely write in the genre field, you are subjected to FreeDB limited and American centric selection

It is inefficient to edit track and artists names, you have to go to the field and click F2 to edit each field

every time you start to rip you must remember to click "load saved configurations", or you will have your ripped files in an undesired format. See comments.

"every time you start to rip you must remember to click "load saved configurations"" With version 2.0.2. the saved configuration can be used as a default, so you it is preset.
–
TorstenDec 25 '14 at 13:54

Sorry, I fail to see how EAC could provide quality that most native apps can't, not that it's a bad app, but native is usually preferred ;)
–
invertAug 11 '10 at 9:47

3

Well, for one it has AcurrateRip support. Other then that, it has been designed from the ground up for detecting and correct read errors. I don't think any native app comes cloes to that. RubyRipper is basically a brute-force hack, but still does not implement all the techniques that EAC has.
–
CaseyAug 19 '10 at 1:45

I know I'm rather late to the party, but I love using ripit on the command-line. This perl script is available in the repositories and relies on several programs such as cdparanoia, but you need to have the encoders such as flac or vorbis installed if you want to encode in those formats.

The great thing about it is that it gets all the audio CD information from CDDB or Musicbrainz so the tracks are labeled correctly. The tracks can be tagged with ID3 tags and a playlist can be created.
After the rip, a properly labeled folder containing correctly labeled tracks will be found in the location specified.

There is a choice of encoders; choose -coder 1 for oggenc, -coder 2 for flac and so on; and choose the quality with -q and specify a value between 1 and 10; -q 8 will encode in 256 KBit/s. For more information see man ripit or see the Ubuntu manpage online.

A sample burn command that I use regularly is:

ripit -eject -d /dev/sr1 -coder 1 -q 8 -o ~/Music

Explanation: -d /dev/sr1 specifies the optical drive with your cd in (you can find out what it yours is with sudo lshw -c disk and install lshw if necessary); -coder 1 -q 8 is the ogg encoder with quality level 8; -o ~/Music means save the output to /home/mike/Music.

Note: if there is any hidden data on the cd inserted, you will need to note the response from ripit and then simply add 1-10 (if there are ten tracks) after /dev/sr1.

I've just discovered that suddenly Sound Juicer stopped to obey my rip configurations. All the MP3s I've ripped in a date somewhere in the past have a 32Kb bitrate. I'll have to re-rip everything again. I hate this sofware! To configure the ripping preferences is overly complicated: catlingmindswipe.blogspot.com.br/2012/11/… And remember: it can suddenly stop to follow your configuration.
–
nevesOct 9 '14 at 4:53

I love Rubyripper but this issue has me using the CLI version on 10.04. I can't post more than one link here, but there is a good overview of Rubyripper's features at the hydrogenaudio.org Knowledgebase

I had the same question. I wanted a programme that would create FLAC and MP3. After researching it a bit I came across Asunder CD Ripper. Seems to do everything I need of a ripping programme.

From the Description:

Asunder is a graphical Audio CD ripper and encoder. It can be used to save tracks from Audio CDs. Main features are:
Supports WAV, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and Wavpack audio files
Uses CDDB to name and tag each track
Can encode to multiple formats in one session
Creates M3U playlists
Allows for each track to be by a different artist
Does not require a specific desktop environment (just GTK+)